A Brief Departure From The Funny
So I try not to clutter this blog with my political views, or really anything else which distracts from the funny. But I ask you all to indulge me briefly until my sense of humor fully recovers.
This past Thursday I ended a job in Detroit - I had driven there with the beloved doggie from Las Vegas for a job. I had been in tech for a week and had seen nothing but the inside of my hotel and the inside of a theatre. I was vaguely aware that there had been a hurricane in the Gulf Coast, and that it had been bad, but I had no concept of the scope of what had gone on. On my way back to Las Vegas, I stopped at a hotel for my first night on the road, flicked on the internet, and began to read. Surprise quickly turned to shock and horror. I couldn't stop thinking about it. As I departed Des Moines for the open road the next day, I still couldn't stop thinking about it. I realized that I had a clear schedule for the next week (the job had ended unexpectedly early), nowhere to be until the 12th, and was young and able bodied. I turned the truck towards Houston, which I had heard was the center of the relief effort for people evacuated from New Orleans. Unfortunately I am not qualified to help in the worst areas - which, by the way, are not just in New Orleans, although it gets the most media attention. I knew I could get in, but with very little gas available, I would just become another rescuee. The worst areas are now strictly a job for the military and for those with rescue training and support, or you might just end up needed to be rescued yourself.
I got to the Astrodome last night and took my first shift as a volunteer. The scope of the relief efforts is mind boggling. The Astrodome isn't just a dome, it's a complex of buildings that includes a convention center, the dome, a stadium, and other large buildings, all of which are being used to house refugees. It is calm but somewhat chaotic, which is what happens when an entire city springs up overnight out of nothing. People who have lost everything are desperately trying to find relatives they became separated from. There are children without parents, husbands without wives, elderly without their caregivers. Many now own nothing more than the clothing they are wearing.
I have several thoughts going through my head right now. First is that everyone, every person in America, needs to do something to help these people. I know people don't want to hear this, but the centers seem fairly well stocked with food and water at this point - what's going to help most is money. With money the rescue agencies can purchase what they need most, which changes daily and rapidly. If you can afford ANYTHING, please consider making a donation. I don't care if it's $1, $1 will buy a meal for one person. Please give what you can. This will be the largest refugee operation in the history of the United States, and it's going to last quite a while. Please help and continue to help if you can. Money can be donated to The Red Cross, which is leading the relief efforts, or any of a number of charitable organizations, a list of which may be found here. I am sure that all of these charities are doing good work, but the only one I have personally come into contact with is the Red Cross, which is leading the efforts at the Astrodome. If you have cash to spare, please consider making a second donation to the Humane Society, which is operating in flooded areas rescuing animals affected by the hurricane. Obviously, people come first, but many companion animals were abandoned by their owners, who were prohibited from taking them along, and my heart goes out to them as well. If you cannot give money, there are other ways to help. The local chapters of the Red Cross all across the country are short-staffed as they send people to the affected areas - go to your local chapter (you can look them up on the website) and ask how you can help. If you cannot give money, the next best thing you can give is time. If you can find it in your heart to volunteer and you can take time off of work, try to do that - the refugee camps that exist will still need help weeks and even months from now. Everyone needs to do something, even one small thing - many hands make light work.
My second thought is that we have never in our lifetimes witnessed a failure of the American government on this kind of scale. It has failed - we have failed - in the most important responsibility of government anywhere - to safeguard the basic welfare of it's citizens. Our government is practiced at airlifting food, water, and basic medical supplies to the worst war zones in the world - we do it all the time. To wait as long as they did, to leave people stranded at the NOLA convention center for 5 days without food, water, or medicine, to allow the situation at the Superdome to become as desperate as it was, TO ABANDON IT'S OWN CITIZENS TO LITERALLY DIE IN THE STREETS, is INEXCUSABLE. There is a blog - read it here - run by a person who runs an ISP in NOLA that gives a first person account of the horror that has gone on there. Once all of this is over, once every last survivor is out of the affected areas, once order has been restored, it is all of our responsibility to hold our government accountable and start askng why and how this failure could possibly have occurred. These are the people who are supposed to be safeguarding us, preparing emergency plans in case of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Well, if they can't handle a hurricane, they can't handle that. Everything you're seeing on TV right now - it could have been you, it could have been me. If you don't have your disaster kit put together now (and I don't either, by the way), get cracking, because when disaster hits you your government just might turn it's back and abandon you to die. When all of this is over we must all call and write our congressmen, our senators, our president, our elected leaders and ask how this possibly could have happened, what they did to help in the time of crisis, and how they plan to prevent such a huge failure from EVER happening again. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, they've gotta go. Republican, democrat, doesn't matter. They work for you - what did they do to help in time of crisis?
My third thought is how different the average American reaction has been from the reaction to 9/11. I was living in New York City at the time and was staggered at the immediate and extended support of the entire country. This seems different to me, and I admit that I am somewhat disappointed. In the aftermath of 9/11, I don't know anyone who thought of anything but. Sports events and parties were cancelled out of respect for the dead and the affected. TV and radio aired non-stop descriptions of what was going on and how people could help. I don't know how this is different, but for many Americans it seems to be. I can tell you one important way it's different - during 9/11 there was very little refugee work to be done, few people in immediate and desperate need of help. If you got out of the towers you lived, if you were stuck inside you died. Simple as that. Although massive medical efforts were mobilized and volunteers poured in from all over the country, there was little to be done. The way in which this crisis differs is that there is so much to be done and so many people in dire need of immediate assistance - people who haven't just lost their job at a financial services firm headquartered in the towers, they have lost everything they ever had and are in immediate and dire need of food, of clothing, of medical attention. Across from the Astrodome there is a rental housing complex with a sign out front that offers "Hurricane Victim Specials!". Nice try, guys. We have to do better. We ALL have to do better.
I will try to get back to the funny, but now I have to get back to the Astrodome. Feel free to use the comments to share your feelings or to tell people how they can help.
This past Thursday I ended a job in Detroit - I had driven there with the beloved doggie from Las Vegas for a job. I had been in tech for a week and had seen nothing but the inside of my hotel and the inside of a theatre. I was vaguely aware that there had been a hurricane in the Gulf Coast, and that it had been bad, but I had no concept of the scope of what had gone on. On my way back to Las Vegas, I stopped at a hotel for my first night on the road, flicked on the internet, and began to read. Surprise quickly turned to shock and horror. I couldn't stop thinking about it. As I departed Des Moines for the open road the next day, I still couldn't stop thinking about it. I realized that I had a clear schedule for the next week (the job had ended unexpectedly early), nowhere to be until the 12th, and was young and able bodied. I turned the truck towards Houston, which I had heard was the center of the relief effort for people evacuated from New Orleans. Unfortunately I am not qualified to help in the worst areas - which, by the way, are not just in New Orleans, although it gets the most media attention. I knew I could get in, but with very little gas available, I would just become another rescuee. The worst areas are now strictly a job for the military and for those with rescue training and support, or you might just end up needed to be rescued yourself.
I got to the Astrodome last night and took my first shift as a volunteer. The scope of the relief efforts is mind boggling. The Astrodome isn't just a dome, it's a complex of buildings that includes a convention center, the dome, a stadium, and other large buildings, all of which are being used to house refugees. It is calm but somewhat chaotic, which is what happens when an entire city springs up overnight out of nothing. People who have lost everything are desperately trying to find relatives they became separated from. There are children without parents, husbands without wives, elderly without their caregivers. Many now own nothing more than the clothing they are wearing.
I have several thoughts going through my head right now. First is that everyone, every person in America, needs to do something to help these people. I know people don't want to hear this, but the centers seem fairly well stocked with food and water at this point - what's going to help most is money. With money the rescue agencies can purchase what they need most, which changes daily and rapidly. If you can afford ANYTHING, please consider making a donation. I don't care if it's $1, $1 will buy a meal for one person. Please give what you can. This will be the largest refugee operation in the history of the United States, and it's going to last quite a while. Please help and continue to help if you can. Money can be donated to The Red Cross, which is leading the relief efforts, or any of a number of charitable organizations, a list of which may be found here. I am sure that all of these charities are doing good work, but the only one I have personally come into contact with is the Red Cross, which is leading the efforts at the Astrodome. If you have cash to spare, please consider making a second donation to the Humane Society, which is operating in flooded areas rescuing animals affected by the hurricane. Obviously, people come first, but many companion animals were abandoned by their owners, who were prohibited from taking them along, and my heart goes out to them as well. If you cannot give money, there are other ways to help. The local chapters of the Red Cross all across the country are short-staffed as they send people to the affected areas - go to your local chapter (you can look them up on the website) and ask how you can help. If you cannot give money, the next best thing you can give is time. If you can find it in your heart to volunteer and you can take time off of work, try to do that - the refugee camps that exist will still need help weeks and even months from now. Everyone needs to do something, even one small thing - many hands make light work.
My second thought is that we have never in our lifetimes witnessed a failure of the American government on this kind of scale. It has failed - we have failed - in the most important responsibility of government anywhere - to safeguard the basic welfare of it's citizens. Our government is practiced at airlifting food, water, and basic medical supplies to the worst war zones in the world - we do it all the time. To wait as long as they did, to leave people stranded at the NOLA convention center for 5 days without food, water, or medicine, to allow the situation at the Superdome to become as desperate as it was, TO ABANDON IT'S OWN CITIZENS TO LITERALLY DIE IN THE STREETS, is INEXCUSABLE. There is a blog - read it here - run by a person who runs an ISP in NOLA that gives a first person account of the horror that has gone on there. Once all of this is over, once every last survivor is out of the affected areas, once order has been restored, it is all of our responsibility to hold our government accountable and start askng why and how this failure could possibly have occurred. These are the people who are supposed to be safeguarding us, preparing emergency plans in case of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Well, if they can't handle a hurricane, they can't handle that. Everything you're seeing on TV right now - it could have been you, it could have been me. If you don't have your disaster kit put together now (and I don't either, by the way), get cracking, because when disaster hits you your government just might turn it's back and abandon you to die. When all of this is over we must all call and write our congressmen, our senators, our president, our elected leaders and ask how this possibly could have happened, what they did to help in the time of crisis, and how they plan to prevent such a huge failure from EVER happening again. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, they've gotta go. Republican, democrat, doesn't matter. They work for you - what did they do to help in time of crisis?
My third thought is how different the average American reaction has been from the reaction to 9/11. I was living in New York City at the time and was staggered at the immediate and extended support of the entire country. This seems different to me, and I admit that I am somewhat disappointed. In the aftermath of 9/11, I don't know anyone who thought of anything but. Sports events and parties were cancelled out of respect for the dead and the affected. TV and radio aired non-stop descriptions of what was going on and how people could help. I don't know how this is different, but for many Americans it seems to be. I can tell you one important way it's different - during 9/11 there was very little refugee work to be done, few people in immediate and desperate need of help. If you got out of the towers you lived, if you were stuck inside you died. Simple as that. Although massive medical efforts were mobilized and volunteers poured in from all over the country, there was little to be done. The way in which this crisis differs is that there is so much to be done and so many people in dire need of immediate assistance - people who haven't just lost their job at a financial services firm headquartered in the towers, they have lost everything they ever had and are in immediate and dire need of food, of clothing, of medical attention. Across from the Astrodome there is a rental housing complex with a sign out front that offers "Hurricane Victim Specials!". Nice try, guys. We have to do better. We ALL have to do better.
I will try to get back to the funny, but now I have to get back to the Astrodome. Feel free to use the comments to share your feelings or to tell people how they can help.
posted by -J. at 12:06 PM
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